A milking animal arrangement for housing large stocks of milking animals, e.g. hundreds or even thousands of milking animals, may comprise resting and feeding areas wherein the milking animals are allowed to rest and are fed, and a milking area housing a plurality of milking positions, at which the milking animals are milked.
Typically, very large stocks of milking animals are milked batch wise in for example parallel stall, Herringbone, or rotary milking systems at predetermined periods of times.
Voluntary milking systems for fully automated milking are well known in the art. They have typically been implemented for smaller herds of milking animals, i.e. up to 100 milking animals, in housed environments. However, when milking large stocks of milking animals automatically in voluntary milking systems some problems arise.
One problem encountered while implementing voluntary milking systems for large stocks of milking animals is the difficulties in obtaining high milking machine utilization. Another problem is that it is difficult to monitor and control a large number of milking animals and their movements.
These problems are particularly noticeable in very large farms wherein the milking animals are housed in different sections or pastures, and which have a large number of milking robots for milking.
Still another problem arises when a particular milking animal, which for example has to be treated manually by the farmer, shall be found. Even if the milking animals are housed in different sections it may be troublesome and time consuming to find the particular milking animal.
Further, the voluntary milking system may have drawbacks when being implemented in pasture-based systems. In New Zealand and Australia, for instance, the cows spend typically all their time on pasture. In such systems the cows may have to walk considerable distances to be milked and may have to be moved from one paddock to another, typically once a day, to efficiently utilize the grass that is grown. This puts obviously further demands on the arrangement used: it has to be capable of enticing and guiding the milking animals to walk the considerable distance to the milking system regularly and means has to be provided for directing the milking animals to appropriate paddocks after having been milked.